Why I can't fill a prescription for a drug as common as penicillin

Like many people with ADHD, I have a prescription from my Doctor for a stimulant medication.  Due to the nature of the medication I can only fill a one month supply at a time, I need to physically present the prescription at the pharmacy once a month, and I cannot re-fill my prescription for 30 calendar days after picking up my medications.  In other words taking a controlled substance is a great big pain in the neck.  However, I feel it is a small price to pay for the way that the medications alleviate the symptoms of ADHD and allow me to function far more effectively.  So imagine my surprise when I tried to fill my prescription for the generic equivalent of extended release Ritalin tablets, and was told that there are none available....anywhere.

I was totally baffled as to why not a single pharmacy in the Greater Portland area had this medication.  This isn't some exotic experimental drug.  Literally thousands of people take this medication daily.  This would be like trying to fill a prescription for birth control pills or penicillin and being told that no one has any, and wasn't sure when they would get it.  I did some research on line and found fairly quickly that there are shortages of the most commonly prescribed ADHD medications all over the country.  I was stunned that the companies that manufacture the drugs would allow this to happen.  Why would they not make enough?  Is it no longer profitable?  Is Big Pharma to blame?  My head was already spinning with conspiracy theories.  I decided that I would call customer service at Covidian which is the company that manufactures Methylin ER; the ER stands for extended release.  This is a generic form of Ritalin that I take daily.  I had never once called a customer service number for a pharmaceutical firm, and I wasn't sure what to expect.  Indifference? Long hold times? A non human auto responder system asking me to say what I wanted and then sending me into a voice mail abyss?

Well, I was very surprised to find that after two rings a very pleasant woman answered the call.  I told her what the nature of my call was, and she immediately was able to give me detailed information about the situation.  It seems that at the end of last year, the Federal Drug Enforcement Agency ordered manufacturers like Covidian to cease making the extended release forms of Ritalin.  They have quotas that they maintain, and if there is too much supply they feel the risk for abuse goes up.  Therefore, they order the manufacture of these drugs to cease until the supply reaches an acceptable level.  In theory this makes sense; you don't want a ton of surplus out there for certain meds because the potential for abuse is high.  However, what they did was shut down production for not just ER Ritalin, but several other drugs as well.  The supplies ran very low, and now there is insufficient manufacturing capacity to meet the demand for all of the meds that they had to stop making.  The woman apologized profusely, and assured me they were doing everything they could to get the medications back on the market.

So kudos to Covidian for having an excellent customer service experience.  Of course this still leaves me with no ADHD meds.  What should you do if you find yourself in a similiar situation?  here are a few thoughts:

1. Call your Doctor and ask about alternatives.
2. Keep in touch with your local pharmacy.  Ask how often they get shipments in, and whether they could call you if they get some of the meds you take in stock.
3. Call around; sometimes some of the big national chains or warehouse stores will have the meds when others don't.

Finally, while I support the DEA's efforts to police and regulate controlled substances it may be time for them to revisit their quota system.  The system that was designed to keep drugs out of the hands of criminals is instead keeping them out of the hands of the people who actually use them legally.  That sounds to me like throwing the baby out with the bath water.